[Closed] Empty Welsh Trail Centres

I'd guess uplift is the bulk problem here. Up in Shropshire here and Eastridge was thriving, now not so much.

Different bpw grab the vast majority of the funding now, which is a real shame, meaning there's much less for upkeep and new trails elsewhere.

Locally the trails here seen to have transformed from single-track rocky and rooty fun to wide bermy monsters where it seems everyone is trying to out Strava each other and do straight lines missing the while bloody point of a trail 😔

Just the changing face of mountain biking I guess, mooooooar travel, heavier bikes, e bikes.

I don't get to the southern Welsh trail centres much, but I'd imagine BPW sucks a huge amount of their traffic up. When I go to any in the North, it often seems I'm just being overtaken by groups on E-bikes.

I'd guess uplift is the bulk problem here. Up in Shropshire here and Eastridge was thriving, now not so much.

Different bpw grab the vast majority of the funding now, which is a real shame, meaning there's much less for upkeep and new trails elsewhere.

Locally the trails here seen to have transformed from single-track rocky and rooty fun to wide bermy monsters where it seems everyone is trying to out Strava each other and do straight lines missing the while bloody point of a trail 😔

Just the changing face of mountain biking I guess, mooooooar travel, heavier bikes, e bikes.

YUp, BPW is the main answer.

It's full EVERY day...

Last week... maybe 10 people at AFan on Wed.... 150 at BPW on Thurs... that's the simple answer

Forest of Dean seems busier than ever too. They've done a lot of work on new trails. I guess most people have to drive quite a bit further to get to Afan.

I think there's also a HUGE amount of off-piste stuff across South Wales, which has only got grown in both number of trails and popularity since 2020. If you look at Cwmcarn, they've introduced the offpiste stuff to the trails and (according to strava) some of them get ridden more than the main track.

With Afan in particular, the issue is always trail diversions due to logging - I can't remember the last time I went there and was able to do a full trail of anything other than Y Wal without going on some fireroad diversion.

Are you ignoring the cost of everything has increased (over the last 18 months not just recently) - fuel costs are up which means fewer people are going places, once there the costs for staying are also up.

Forest of Dean is mentally busy these past couple of years, especially on weekends. I think it's unique mix of family, uplift and enduro makes it incredibly popular, not to mention the easy transport links.

I haven't been to BPW in donkeys years, but it does make everything else hurt for sure, just being privately owned means the trails are just that much better.

There definitely is a general change to MTB that I don't necessarily agree with, the whole Strava, and ebikes makes it seem a lot more hostile and aggressive than it perhaps should.

Maybe COVID made people think twice about driving miles just to ride a bike ?

Certainly it astounded me how far people were prepared to travel pre lock down (the COVID thread about not travelling far to ride)

I think Wales is much quieter than usual at the minute. I was in some places last week (non biking) that I was expecting to be rammed and they were relatively empty

Don't disagree with the BPW diagnosis, but interesting that popularity of the Marin trail hasn't gone down since Antur opened. Perhaps context plays a role, i.e. stuff to do/buy/eat after riding.

A combination of, lots of amazing off piste stuff in s. Wales- that's improving all the time, rising fuel prices and BPW sucking up business

I’ve literally just booked a stay in Afan lodge for me and Junior, 13, in July.

Wondering whether to take my clockwork evo and rent him a full suss to even things up, he’s never done it before.

With that, its £200 b&b, £75 in fuel, and might be £130 in bike hire. I know there are ways to bring that cost down but this is a small holiday for us both so I’d quite like the ease of the a lodge. And, we haven’t added Teenager levels of Food yet…

Are you ignoring the cost of everything has increased (over the last 18 months not just recently) – fuel costs are up which means fewer people are going places, once there the costs for staying are also up.

Definitely a factor - chatting to a shop keeper in Bakewell the other day and business over Easter has been busy, but nowhere near as busy as their usual pre-Covid Easters.

I can see a lot of people having to reduce the number of times they burn 50 quid in fuel to travel to a trail centre, or the coast, or a favourite walking destination.

Wondering whether to take my clockwork evo and rent him a full suss to even things up, he’s never done it before

IT's still rocky, rooty and bumpy... I love the place as it's very different to anywhere else my lad rides, it reminds me of older days when younger and fitter. We played there last week on Wed and really enjoyed it.

Thanks Weeksy, I’d rather not take my Carbon race FS - I know it’ll probably be ok but I can’t justify a replacement if the frame takes a hit, and he’ll be much slower than me so I won’t be blasting the trails as much.

I think everyone's pretty spot on, it's a combination of people discovering bigger and better trails, plus the insane travel costs meaning people can't just drive 2hrs on a whim.

Cwmcarn car park is rammed every weekend Tbf - don’t see that is less popular. Although as well as the 2 red loops and 1 blue loop they have the DH track and uplift + loads of off piste (sone of which is now official). I’ve been to Afan 2 or 3 times pre Covid and it’s always been pretty dead. We stayed at that lodge at the top of Afan once and that was dead too. I’ve always been underwhelmed by that trail centre though.

they burn 50 quid in fuel

Ho, ho, ho. £70 for diesel nowadays I would expect given the 5 litres of petrol I bought for the mower cost just under £8 yesterday (supermarket fuel not jungle juice from Shell). If I drive the budget is around £175 for fuel in the Saab!

Going away is a rare treat currently. Staying local and doing my bit for climate change.

Is it just me, or are more people steering away from XC these days? Everyone just wants to go down faster and more often. Afan isn't like that, it's a lot of big loops that take in great scenery. Even the easier runs at Afan are 15km(ish) with some tricky climbs - I honestly think the center itself is just a completely different type of riding to what most people want these days.

FoD is packed because it's super easy to get to the top of the hill and back down again loads of times in a day. BPW is the same although prices are starting to squeeze a lot of "locals" out. Cwmcarn is still busy but Cafall and Twrch are now ridden by at least 90% ebikes.

I live a fair distance from any trail centre but used to visit Seven Stanes regularly and stay over 3-4 days. Combination of COVID and cost of everything hikes has meant I haven't done this for a couple of years and I imagine plenty of others feel the same

Yeah for me time and cost are a big factor. Living in Manchester BPW (or south Wales in general) is a huge schlep that just sucks up money. I can get to Revolution in under 2 hours though, and for a weekend I can book a day at Antur Stiniog and then do CyB or "whatever the Marin Trail is called now" on the other day.

South Wales isn't as attractive for me

Apparently BPW can have 500 people visit on a weekend per day now they've split the morning / afternoon....

Having recently been to cwmcarn last year and Afan at the start of this year (after not visiting either for 10 yrs) I can safely say I'll leave it another 10 at least before visiting again. BPW I'll prob go to 6 times this year.

interesting that popularity of the Marin trail hasn’t gone down since Antur opened.

And more people are cottoning on to it having some of the best off-piste in the land, so it attracts some of the same crowd as Antur anyway.

I really don't think trail centres are "empty" anyway, Afan was absolutely rammed when I visited last year, but even if some are quiet - I'd say the existence of BPW is a minor factor in that.

- Increased popularity and knowledge of "natural" trails and mountains
- Massive increase in hand-cut off-piste trails, often more local (as mentioned, S Wales has tons)
- Everyone seems to go to the Tweed Valley all the time

I thought ebikes might make the trail centers busier, but I think the reality is with an ebike, you don't need a slow interesting single-track climb anymore, better to have a quick fireroad blast to the top and do more downhill runs. We used to ride Afan and similar quite regularly, but now prefer the many FoD options and it's closer.

Having recently been to cwmcarn last year and Afan at the start of this year (after not visiting either for 10 yrs) I can safely say I’ll leave it another 10 at least before visiting again.

Could you expand upon why please?

I've got to say, last time i went to Afan (and the Ponds) it was a bit dull. What used to be quite exciting on older geo bikes is a bit tame on an enduro sled...

I don't beleive people are travelling as much. Simples. Either that or they are all off to Benidorm again. We have just had a lovely dry sunny Easter Bank holiday when in any pre Covid year all the local campsites would have been rammed, and they were basically 3/4 empty. I just think the uncertainty with the future combined with price rises wqe have already seen, are making people think twice about travelling.
But I also think the amount of off-piste loveliness in S Wales has had a major bearing on tra\il centre use too.

As Radbikebro says, says I think there is a general decline in xc or general trail type riding. A lot of people are on bigger, slacker and heavier bikes. I joined an MTB club over a year ago and the younger riders seem to be way more focused on sessioning off piste singletrack, jumps and uplift type stuff. So more up and down than across.

I’ve never been that excited by Afan tbh. Prefer the trails at Cwmcarn and Brechfa. But we’re visiting Afan this summer coming for the first time in a few years - the plan is to visit the off piste at the masts though and see how that goes in the morning. I’d we find it tough then we’ll probably do a trail centre loop in the afternoon.

On Cwmcarn there is a high % of e-bikes now - see more of those than real bikes. I went to the FOD yesterday for an explore around Staunton - I’d say it was 50/50 ebikes to real bikes.

We spent Easter at FOD and Afan and it was chalk and cheese. FOD was rammed Afan empty. We stayed on the campsite at the Afan trail head and from our perspective the following were the issues.

The trails are the trails and it feels like nothing has been updated since Blade was openned. (Sorry trail fairies) One of the better descents from the top by the wind turbines appears to be permanently closed. The shop was shut Sunday and Monday. The showers were cold and no one bothered to replace the toilet roll when it ran out. It all felt very run down. The owner said the campsite was full but it didn’t look even close to fun to us.

Im not sure we will bother going back for a while. It’s 4 hours away which opens up lots of other options for us

Depending on where you live, it can be a tough one.

I havent been to Afan for a few years, but always enjoy the place, i just know what its like. i dont go there expecting a BPW setup.

But having said that, coming from the south coast, we have to drive past (or go very close to) FoD, Staunton, Cwmcarn, Barry Sidings, BPW to name but a few, so there are plenty of more appealing options along the way.

the local campsites would have been rammed, and they were basically 3/4 empty

I think lots of folks took the opportunity to fly away for a holiday. Manchester airpit was rammed.

On Cwmcarn there is a high % of e-bikes now – see more of those than real bikes

Seems like that at Llandegla as well. - more so than at other trails

Ebikes are a big factor. They're creating splits within riding groups that discourage away days to trail centres, and encourage trips to places like BPW/FOD, as you can all session your various bikes, and just meet at intervals, whereas you used to go and ride all together round a lap of something like Afan, which just isn't great as a mix.

Add to that the cost of eBikes, both up front and ongoing, and it's robbing people of their old travel budgets. Clearly thats not true for everyone, but we've opened a couple of trailhead shops recently and the number one thing to sell is tyres to eBike riders, usually fitted to bikes which are otherwise stock, and generally pretty hanging. It's really notable that the spend on parts/fancy stuff is almost always on the non eBikes and eBikes are just getting trashed by comparison.

Seems to me your average bike rider coming out of Covid is an eBike owner thats grinding it into the ground on a budget nowadays. I guess that maybe applies to travel too, the self uplifted days away to FOD/BPW are relatively good value if you're not paying to sit in the bus, and if you can do it without accommodation it's actually keeping the cost down relative to the old trips away.

– Everyone seems to go to the Tweed Valley all the time

Have to agree with that. From what I can see people are travelling just as much as ever, but possibly to different places. Where I am in the east of the Borders it has been insanely busy with tourists / visitors this month. Honestly, the numbers are closer to what I would usually expect for a busy June and local bsinesses have all head there best ever takings for this time of year. I spent a few days in the Loch Rannoch hotel in the run up to easter weekend and that was also 100% fully booked the entire week.
Off piste riding has also massively taken off up here during covid. Any evenly slightly nice day sees the Tweed Valley pretty much rammed. On weekends it is now common for there to be queues to start the 'must do' golfie trails. Storm Arwen related closures have certainly added to that but it is generally noticeably busier now. Same for Penmanshiel woods. Trails only built during the first lockdown and now very much a destination for Berwickshire, East Lothian, Edinburgh riders.

I've not been to Afan since pre-covid despite living reasonably close. The main reason being lack of time but secondly hearing from various places that the trails arent maintained much and are overgrown. I guess those sorts of comments spread easily and sway people to other locations

For those passing through S. Wales, from social media, there seems to be an active trail building/maintenance group going at Margam, right by the motorway. I tihnk it is largely family/xc trails but could be worth a stop (its 2 minutes of the M4), I guess building on the 'World Cup' XC cource that get built and never used.

BPW is the only centre to regularly update it's trails.
Afan etc are too 'xc/trail' based and dated (built 20 years ago?) with focus on loops rather than descending which if you look at what bikes look like now, you'll see what the trends are. So it mostly comes down to funding and ability to provide something new to appeal to visitors.
Personally I have no interest in going to Afan etc to do a loop. much more fun riding elsewhere. I used to enjoy brechfa as it was a nice part of the world, but there's better riding closer to home.

You also have a lot of less official riding spots that can be pretty busy. There's only so many people!

The centres at afan helped to bring a lot of people and income to a place that it was needed. Hopefully they can be busy again but the governments need to keep investing in new trails to bring people in. The valley has a lot of potential!

Slightly off topic but kind of related.

We were away over Easter for the first time in years, my Wife has a few caravan parks on Facebook she follows, all of them had last minute availability and still weren’t full. We took our pick and took advantage of a relatively low cost short break.

I think people are either flying abroad or are being extra cautious with they’re available spending money. I think the holiday places this summer won’t be full, people will either be prepared to lose their deposits and go abroad or lose they’re holiday full stop.

Although when I look at the car park at FOD there appears to be a very big pot of money spent on bikes, specifically eMTB. It seems every man and his trail dog has one. That’s a lot of money to save on uplifts!

South Wales is home for me and I'm at the TCs most weekends.

TBH, Cwmcarn is busy most weekends, sometimes it's not - for whatever reason the planets are out of alignment and it's quiet (well half-full), but mostly very busy. Afan is genrally pretty busy too, especially if the weather is nice. Glyncorrwg down the road though, not so much.

Yeah, everything chanaged when BPW opened, but that was 9 years ago. If I had to say what the major changes have been in the last few years, it's more choice - as a lot of people said, 'off-piste' riding has become more accepted by the powers that be in recent years and a lot of the previous 'shady spots' are becoming more offical, Risca Bike Park, the unoffical, offical name for the unoffical bits of Cwmcarn gets more riders than Cwmcarn. At Afan most people have worked out there are free car parks that service the trails (tight sods) and there's not lots of tollerated trails in Cardiff for the first time every, Cardiff being about 5x more population dense than anywhere else in Wales.

Trail wise there has been a huge evolution, with every offical trail in South Wales being effected to a degree by harvesting, the old tight twisty single track trails are largely gone, replaced by wider, more bike park like trails. They suit me, others less so.

I’ve not been to Afan since pre-covid despite living reasonably close. The main reason being lack of time but secondly hearing from various places that the trails arent maintained much and are overgrown. I guess those sorts of comments spread easily and sway people to other locations

For those passing through S. Wales, from social media, there seems to be an active trail building/maintenance group going at Margam, right by the motorway. I tihnk it is largely family/xc trails but could be worth a stop (its 2 minutes of the M4), I guess building on the ‘World Cup’ XC cource that get built and never used.

Most, if not all the trail crews were off a lot of the 2 years of the Pandemic, and yeah the trails started to return to nature, but that's not the case anymore, they're free and easy to pass and lots of work seems to be going into puddle clearning.

Margam... I've been twice, they're working hard on it, but it's not going to compete with the other places, it's still an XC race venue, the climbs are pretty technical, the descents aren't really, yeah in some places, but mostly it's a hard climb up, some epic views and herds of Deer to see and very short loops.

Afan is a bit odd, it almost seems you have to know it in advance to know what is coming. When you do, the reds and blacks (w2 and blade) are easily comparable to the non-jumpy BPW easier reds and harder blues. But you have this "is it a climb, is it a descent?" limbo as you turn it to some sections.
Apart from the hilariously retro "drop your saddle" signs in places.

I do laugh at the "lack of maintainance" complaints - with the exception of overgrown bushes which were a bit of a pain last summer.
Half the people are on enduro rigs moaning about rough trails, the other half a saying a hardtail is overkill and its just easy xc riding. I guess peoples expectations have changed.

There is a week-old thread about Glentress being quiet too. Maybe everyone is off gravelbiking.

A combination of, lots of amazing off piste stuff in s. Wales- that’s improving all the time, rising fuel prices and BPW sucking up business

I think the off piste point is here is a good one, I'll park at Cwmcarn and do an enduro loop heading to wyllie and back to the car park for lunch and then the RBP stuff, will see a good amount of people riding this stuff, but I wont touch the trail centre stuff there.

It's a combination of fuel costs and the E-bike issue from what people have said to me in the trails. If one or two of a group go the assisted route they want to do completely different riding to everyone else so the group fragments, meaning bug trips away are harder to organise and less frequent.

TBH, Cwmcarn is busy most weekends, sometimes it’s not – for whatever reason the planets are out of alignment and it’s quiet (well half-full), but mostly very busy. Afan is genrally pretty busy too, especially if the weather is nice. Glyncorrwg down the road though, not so much.

I see the same. Cwmcarn can be rammed or quiet for no particular reason and Glyncorrwg has completely fallen off people's radar, they get to Afan and that's it.

The BPW issue is real though. It just sucks evryone in and is one of the reasons I have gone off the place. The effect it had when it first opened was surreal, everywhere suddenly was empty, and that has not really declined. When it was still quite small everyone would do a day there and another somewhere close to make a weekend of it but they now have so many trails in BPW that you can just go there for a weekend and not get bored. That's effecting traffic to the other places.